


Eye of the Beholder

by tastewithouttalent



Series: A Thousand Words [2]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Anal Fingering, Bruises, Exhibitionism, M/M, Masturbation, No Plot/Plotless, Photographs, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-16 12:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14811098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "This is a good photograph in and of itself, even to eyes less inherently biased than Izaya’s own: it’s clear, crisp with evidence of a steady hand and an unmoving subject, and even with Shizuo’s head turned to cast his gaze to the side the details of his features are illuminated to clear relief." Izaya claims a treasure of a photograph for himself and makes good use of it.





	Eye of the Beholder

Izaya’s out of breath by the time he rounds the corner to the front of his apartment complex and makes for the glass-paned doors leading into the lobby. He didn’t _have_ to run over the last several blocks of distance -- Shizuo might be fast enough to keep up with him in a straight-line race, but Izaya’s had years of experience in interposing obstacles of walls and people and vehicles between himself and his most persistent pursuer, and he’s been perfectly safe for the last quarter-hour. But his heart is pounding with adrenaline, his blood tingling hot with every breath he takes, and even after his sprint slowed to an easy jog it seemed a better choice to keep going as he had begun rather than to slow to a more sedate pace.

He _could_ turn back around and return to what he meant to be doing in Ikebukuro. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s deliberately toyed with the fire of Shizuo’s smouldering rage, and the idea is entertaining enough to pull a smile at his lips even as he steps into the elevator with a flourish that throws his jacket into an arc like a cape before he presses the button for his floor and waits for the doors to close. But he’s lost track of what his idle intention was for the afternoon, his mild interest in some trivial plot has been completely overshadowed by the certain satisfaction of gaining Shizuo’s dedicated attention for the span of a few minutes, and there’s the fact that Shizuo has a pronounced tendency to gain intent and speed as his temper rises. Seeing Izaya twice in the span of an hour may take him to unheard-of levels of power, and lively as Izaya feels he doesn’t care to take that much of a risk without a certain payoff at the end of it.

Besides, he thinks as he slides his hand into his pocket to touch his fingertips just against the edge of his phone, he already has his favorite kind of reward in hand.

The hall in front of him is empty when he emerges from the elevator. Izaya doesn’t bother checking for an audience; there’s rarely anyone here, and his attention to the phone he’s sliding free of his pocket is enough to dissuade anyone who might be unusually interested in making conversation. He’s occupied, clearly, or will be very shortly; he doesn’t even lift his head to watch his door as he palms his key free of the pocket of his pants and reaches to unlock the weight of the deadbolt that guarantees his privacy from any but the most superhuman of visitors. He glances up as he comes through the door, scanning the silent expanse of the unoccupied space before him before letting the door swing shut and calling a wry “I’m home,” to the uncaring apartment as he slides his shoes free at the entrance. He nudges them to the side with one foot to align them at the corner of the entryway before shrugging the weight of his jacket down and off his shoulders: that goes onto a hook by the door, as his key goes onto the table alongside the entrance, before Izaya leaves coat and key and shoes behind him to pad forward to the living room and the expanse of the couch waiting there for him.

He slides himself over the back of the couch rather than bothering with coming around the furniture as would make more sense. It’s faster to brace his hip against the support before letting himself topple in and over to land atop the give of the cushions anyway, and it’s not as if he has anyone in the room to see him and frown judgment at his efficient approach to comfort. He lands hard against his back, sprawling into ease over the couch cushions with his phone still braced in his uplifted hand. He presses his thumb to the corner, swiping to open up the recently used apps, and his touch finds the icon for his photo roll without him even having to think about it.

The most recent photo zooms into focus under the weight of his thumb. Izaya almost doesn’t need to look at it: he just took it, after all, it’s hardly as if the details of this particular memory have faded out of clarity. But he had been preoccupied at the moment he took the photograph, his attention lifted from the screen before him to gauge the relative focus of the subject of the image he now holds in his hand, and no sooner had the shutter snapped to lock the moment to permanence than more immediate concerns had seized control of his mind and forced his body to motion. It was worth it at the time, if only for the bright, adrenaline-fueled wave of energy that crackled through his veins like electricity and sparkled star-bright at the back of his tongue; but that energy is fading to memory as quickly as his breathing eases towards calm, and Izaya isn’t ready to let it go yet.

Luckily, he has the means to stir himself back towards something like that first stunningly bright excitement right in the palm of his hand.

The picture he laid claim to today is a treasure. Izaya has several that he’s attained before, with more or less success although he keeps all the attempts just the same; each comes with too vivid memories to be easily set aside just for a blurry focus or a failed gesture towards the subject he had been trying to capture. But this one is a good photograph in and of itself, even to eyes less inherently biased than Izaya’s own: it’s clear, crisp with evidence of a steady hand and an unmoving subject, and even with Shizuo’s head turned to cast his gaze to the side the details of his features are illuminated to clear relief. His head is angled towards the camera, the sunlight catching to gold against the windswept tangle of his hair and the details of his features -- straight nose, dark lashes, strong jaw -- all marked out with as much care as if Izaya’s impersonal camera wielded the same attention of a master painter commissioned for some old-fashioned portrait. Izaya stares at the picture for a moment, at that image of Shizuo caught in the very act of turning to look at him, locked into the perfect, precise moment before Shizuo saw his audience and laid claim to recognition and fury at one and the same time; and then Izaya sets his thumb at the bottom of the phone screen, and he swipes sideways with careless grace to shift the display farther on by a handful of photos, to find one less seamlessly perfect for his starting point.

It’s not as if he lacks for material. His camera roll is full of photographs of the man in question, successes and failures alike freighted with the marks of effort that come clear to his own memory with having to struggle for them. There are several that don’t feature Shizuo at all, that focus on a blur of motion or a clear image of a strange-perspective alley as Izaya snapped the picture as part of his motion to twist and run; but Izaya remembers them all the same, Izaya can fit the shape of Shizuo’s shoulders just off-frame and can hear the roar of Shizuo’s voice dragging over his name as if he’s returned back to that moment, as if he’s once more pivoting on a heel to sprint away down a street at the fastest pace he can set with his breath giving way over laughter. His chest tightens on an inhale, his throat constricts against the pressure of possibility even from the past-tense shadows of memory, and when he drags air into his lungs against that friction he can feel the burn like it’s setting fire to his blood, like it’s catching the very liquid in his veins to an open flame even as he breathes. He shifts against the couch, sliding himself into a more comfortable position against the cushions and angling a knee wide into the space between the sofa and the coffee table, and when he reaches down it’s to press his palm to the weight of his pants over his hips, to bear down with the heel of his hand and grind into the strain of his rising erection without bothering with pulling open the fly.

He almost doesn’t have to think about it. He’s still flushed from today’s chase, still warm all through himself with the immediacy of his near-miss in the Ikebukuro streets not an hour hence; the heat rises as rapidly as he thinks of it, surging through his veins to swell his cock hard against the inside of his pants as soon as he reaches for the memory of Shizuo’s voice on his name, of Shizuo’s glare against his body. Then he had run from it, as he would have sprinted himself clear from any similar danger to his physical existence; now, in the safety of his apartment, with four walls and a locked door between himself and the outside world, he doesn’t hesitate to press his palm in against himself, or to tip his head back against the cushion beneath him and groan over a breath no one hears but him.

It’s too much to bear. Shizuo is always enough to have this effect on him, even in the moment, when the heat of Izaya’s breathing would be better put to escaping with the fingernail-thin hold on his life he has thus far managed to sustain. But Izaya feels Shizuo’s presence like it’s a flame set to the oil of his blood, until sometimes it’s all he can do to flash a teasing grin instead of giving way to the helpless shudder of want that runs through him. He wonders, sometimes, what Shizuo would do with him if he did give way so obviously, if he were someday to let himself collapse to his knees under the force of the other’s gaze instead of fleeing from it; even in the vaguest of hypotheticals the possibility is enough to groan in the back of his throat and draw his fingers down to fumble roughly with the front of his pants. His button comes open, the fly gives way to the demand of his grip, and as Izaya pushes his pants open so he can reach into the loose weight of the fabric and curl his fingers around his cock he thumbs against the phone screen to scroll forward to another image. This one is more clear, or at least of Shizuo rather than the devastation he leaves in his wake; Izaya fixes his attention on the out-of-focus blur of yellow, and the hazy white of Shizuo’s bared teeth as he lunges forward, and he lets his imagination pull the image into clarity in his head as he tightens his grip around himself and begins to stroke into a slow, savoring rhythm.

Izaya can’t remember when he first began this particular indulgence. Sometime in high school, it must have been, back when he still came away from his run-ins with bruises and sprains from a too-hasty jump or a misjudged dodge that left him taking the edge of Shizuo’s blow rather than missing it completely. There was a heat to the pain, a fire smouldering underneath the sharper, clearer hurt that overlaid any movement he attempted; the first few times were exercises in masochism, more than anything else, with one hand bracing hard against the print of Shizuo’s presence left on Izaya’s body while the other worked rough over the ache of want that strained his cock to so much brighter importance even than the hurts and swelling of his injuries. It was only later, when their fights had spilled from classrooms and high school hallways into the Ikebukuro streets, that Izaya had started to attempt photography to aid his fantasies in place of the wounds he left behind him along with his high school uniform. It’s been over the course of years that a habitual pleasure has become an obsession, that Izaya has started checking his camera roll before he even leaves his apartment when he intends to brave entrance into Ikebukuro itself, and he’s found a rhythm for himself amidst what fragments of reality he can lay claim to, a skeleton for his fantasies to hang atop within the collection of photographs on the phone in his grip.

Izaya doesn’t think of himself. His imagination has ample fodder from the image before him; he doesn’t need to reach into his own reality to heat his blood to flame, to swell his cock to rigid need against his palm. Enough to picture the wave of Shizuo’s hair, the bleached-blond locks curling against the side of that too-handsome face, softening the weight of dark lashes shading against the intense focus in those eyes. The line of his jaw is strong, more defined even than his model brother’s but with cheekbones just as striking alongside a straight-line nose leading down to a mouth that looks almost gentle, when he hasn’t yet seen Izaya. His features are beautiful even in part and breathtaking when taken all together; Izaya thumbs through another photo, skipping over a pair of unrelated images and one of blurry scenery to find one stolen from above while Shizuo ducked his head and bent over the effort of lighting the cigarette at his lips. Izaya can see his hands in this one, the easy angle of his fingers holding the cigarette and the tilt of his wrist as he flicked a lighter; there’s a hint of bare skin at the back of his neck, too, pale from the shadow of his hair as it slides into view from under the weight of his crisp white collar. Izaya’s gaze lingers there, his mouth parts on some half-formed desire to bite, to lick, to kiss; and his breathing gives way in his throat, dragging onto a moan as he tightens his hold on himself and speeds his pace.

He can feel desire building in him, pulling itself to a taut knot deep down in his stomach -- too soon, too fast, he wants to make this last -- as his hand strokes, as his grip seizes onto instinctive pressure. His thoughts are fracturing, they’re giving way to heat in spite of himself, melting down to incoherence as his fingers slide up over the resistance of his length, as he feels himself swelling hotter against his palm. He should slow, he should back off, he knows it even as his shoulders tense, as his chest tightens; and then there’s a _thud_ from the hallway, and Izaya jerks upright at once, reflexive panic stepping in to shove aside even the fast-rising orgasm settling into his abdomen and tensing at his balls. His rhythm stalls, his desire is shoved aside, and for a moment he’s just staring at the door to his apartment, his breathing rushing on the panicked anticipation of an interruption, of a blow enough to knock the door off its hinges, to grant immediate entrance to the pursuer Izaya thought he had left behind him in Ikebukuro. There’s no way for Izaya to hide what he’s doing, no possibility that he can pretend to anything other than jerking off on his couch to a phone full of photos of Shizuo; and for the first moment, as he stares at the door and waits for the inevitable intrusion, all he can feel at the thought is a deep-down ache of pleasure, of satisfaction brighter even than what familiar heat he can draw from his photographs.

The door stays shut, the lock untested. Whatever sound Izaya had heard must have been from farther down the hallway, something dropped from a too-heavy armful or a fist against a door not his own; but Izaya’s breathing is still catching on panting heat all the same, his imagination is flaring into vivid clarity just for the possibility that he had felt for a moment, for that chance of Shizuo walking in on him lying across his couch, flipping through photos of the other as he strokes rough over the aching heat of his cock. The idea burns over Izaya’s face, flushing his cheeks to crimson and lancing fire down the whole of his spine, and when he leans back to return to his sprawl over the couch it’s with his hands trembling with adrenaline, with the image of a new fantasy clear in his head even as he lifts his phone back up over him to return his attention to the image displayed on the screen. The photograph is just as striking as the first time, just as distractingly attractive as it has been every time Izaya lets himself look at it; but his imagination is running away with him now, inventing the sound of footsteps stomping down the hallway, crafting the curl of a rage-heavy fist pounding against the outside of his door or forcing at the handle until the latch gives way, until the hinges tear out of the frame entirely. Izaya would have no time to cover himself, no time to pretend himself into anything other than what he’s doing: Shizuo would walk in on him fully exposed, would look down to see the whole of Izaya’s desire laid absolutely, unequivocally bare before him. The thought makes Izaya’s thighs flex, makes his hips jerk to thrust up against his hand, and he thumbs hard against the screen of his phone, cycling with impatient haste through the remaining photographs to return to the one he seized this morning, of Shizuo just lifting his head to look into the camera, his expression soft and easy on unsuspicious comfort. Izaya groans in the back of his throat, feeling the pull of want knot in his belly and tense in his fingers, and when his lashes flutter with the ache of desire he lets them fall shut, lets the outline of his fantasy play out against the inside of his lids instead of across the screen of his open phone.

He can see it in perfect clarity without even having to reach for the details. His hand tightens around himself, his fingers press tighter against his shaft as his thumb slides up and against the head, but his thoughts are down the hallway, following the illusion of Shizuo’s heavy footsteps marking out the other’s progress down the hall. Izaya can imagine the scowl on Shizuo’s face as he approaches, can picture the weight of it catching to a vicious grin as he proceeds towards the bolted weight of Izaya’s door, as anticipation tilts his shoulders forward and curls to fists at his hands. He would be impatient after following Izaya all the way across Ikebukuro and well into the bounds of Shinjuku, anxious for a fight and hot with the anticipated satisfaction of victory. He’d be expecting the blade of an open knife, would be looking for the blood and shouting that come with their too-brief interludes, when they clash together like sharpened steel striking sparks off each other. The idea alone is enough to tighten Izaya’s fingers and twitch a surge of renewed want through the whole length of his cock in his grip; but of course there would be no fight waiting for Shizuo on the other side of his locked door, no answering laughter for the way his voice would drag over Izaya’s name like a touch too forceful to be a caress but too gentle to quite pass for the hatred it’s meant to be. Izaya shudders against the couch just thinking of it, as if he can hear Shizuo’s voice in his ears even now, demanding entrance on the other side of his door; but his fantasy-self is too lost to pay attention, too undone by the heat of his own motion to parse the gap between imagination and reality.

Izaya reaches out to drop his phone to the floor without looking so he can free his other hand and bring his fingers to press in far over his tongue and collect the wet heat of his mouth, and as imagination murmurs of strong fingers reaching for the handle of his apartment and metal denting under the force of the motion reality brings his hand down towards his hips and tilts his knees open as wide as he can spread them against the catch of his undone pants. His thumb pushes at the edge of the waistband, hitching his clothing down off his hips by an extra inch so he can work his spit-slick fingers in under the strain of his cock and the drawn-up weight of his balls to press warm heat against the tension of his entrance. He tightens against the intrusion, reflex and anticipation falling into agreement as to the response of his body, and Izaya arches himself back against the couch, straining himself up into a curve that slides his shirt up to gather around his chest to leave his stomach laid bare for whatever audience he might have. His wrist flexes, his fingers push, and he lets himself groan as he forces his touch up and into himself, threatening the limit of pain as his fingers sink into the give of his body. It’s a burn, a little too much friction and a little too much strain, but behind his eyes his door is giving way, metal creaking and wood cracking, and he’s rushing himself towards the inevitable conclusion, canting his legs open wide and angling his wrist to make a show of his hand stroking over his cock as he imagines Shizuo striding forward, as he feels the illusory weight of Shizuo’s gaze land on the wanton display he’s making of himself.

There can be no mistake about what Izaya is doing, with his grip fisted around his dark-swollen cock and his wrist straining over the steady thrust of his fingers as he fucks up and into himself. Izaya’s head goes back, his lashes flutter, and in the shadow of his heat-hazed vision he pictures Shizuo, breathless from his chase and wide-eyed on shock, staring full at the display Izaya is making of himself. The thought makes Izaya’s legs tighten, makes his heart flutter with some half-formed thought of hiding himself, of flinching back from the telltale obscenity of what he’s doing; but he’s too close, his once-delayed pleasure is pounding against his chest in lockstep with his heartbeat, and the reflexive strain of attempted resistance only serves to crest the rise of heat into inevitability. Izaya drags a breath, feeling like he’s fighting it into the strain of his lungs, shoving back against the pressure of his body as his cock tightens, as his fingers thrust; and then, at once: “ _Shizu-chan_ ” tearing free from him in a groan loud enough to echo off the distant walls as his body jerks helplessly with the force of the orgasm that jolts through him. His cock twitches, spurting wet up over his bare stomach and dripping down over his fingers, and Izaya’s imagination of Shizuo’s shocked stare gives way to the haze of white that breaks over him. He holds onto it for another moment, feeling himself quiver through aftershocks at the heat of self-conscious arousal that runs through him at the thought of being seen, heard, _known_ by those dark eyes and that set frown; and then he shuts his eyes, and lets himself sag back down against the support of the couch cushions as his fantasy gives way to the fading afterglow of pleasure.

It takes Izaya some time to collect himself again. His legs are aching, he realizes, now that the strain of his arousal has eased enough to let him notice; he can feel the burn of too-much friction inside him, where his stroking fingers have stilled their motion to no more than a dull, pressing fullness against his inner walls. He stays where he is for a moment, catching his breath and collecting his thoughts back to the framework of composure; and then he gusts an exhale and draws his fingers back out of himself at once, moving quickly enough that he doesn’t have time to more than hiss at the pull. His sticky hand he wipes against his stomach to enough cleanliness that he can catch at the waistband of his pants and push them down and off his legs; his shirt comes up, inverting over his head to be dropped atop the same and left alongside the couch as Izaya gets to his feet to pad across his apartment towards the bathroom in no more than his socks. He starts the water for a bath before stripping off the last of his clothing and moving towards the shower to rinse off the worst of the mess he’s made of himself; by the time he’s stepping into the heat of the bath there’s no more trace of his indulgence than the tremor against his legs and the deep-down strain within him from the too-rough use of his fingers. Even that is nearly pleasant, as he settles into the water and leans back to rest his head against the lip of the bath; it offers him the illusion of something more, gives form to the idle daydream he forms in the steam of Shizuo’s hands urging his knees opens, of Shizuo’s cock pressing heat into him instead of his own fingers. It’s a pleasant pretense, however impossible it may be in reality; but Izaya has dedicated himself to crafting illusions for others, and he thinks he deserves at least the occasional indulgence in one of his own.

The truth -- that he is never going to have more of Shizuo than those stolen photographs, that his fantasies will never end in more heat than what his bath can offer -- Izaya doesn’t think about. With no one to make him face the unpleasant realities of his existence, he has no reason to leave the frame of his own self-posed picture.


End file.
